


CSI: SchrÏ¶dinger's Coffin

by fhsa_archivist



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-11
Updated: 2006-02-11
Packaged: 2019-02-05 17:39:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12799125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Greg figures out where Nick is buried.





	CSI: SchrÏ¶dinger's Coffin

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

  
Author's notes: Spoilers: Grave Danger  
  
Notes x2: This takes place in a universe independent of any others that I have written. So take heart. I'll probably never write something like this again.  


* * *

"Based on this battery and what's running off of it, and the fact that we kept the damn light on for as long as we did, I figure Nick's got another ninety minutes left, now."

 

Nick was missing. Nick was missing and they didn't know where he was, just that he'd been kidnapped and he was buried alive and they'd been watching him struggle to stay sane inside that box like the one the dalmation was buried in. But Nick wasn't a dalmation, he was a person, and he was in a box with a gun and a tape recorder and he'd toyed with both of them. Trapped in that box with nowhere to go and all they could do was watch, and he had ninety minutes of air left and Warrick had just set his watch.

 

Based on how long they'd left the light on, Nick only had ninety minutes of air left. Because they'd left the stupid light on so long because it was so important to watch him instead of finding him. Watching Nick wasn't finding him, watching Nick was firing electrons at another electron trying to determine its spin, watching Nick was looking into Schrödinger's box and cutting short the life of the half-dead, half-alive cat inside. Didn't they understand that? Didn't they know that watching was shortening Nick's life expectancy by keeping that light on and removing his air and looking instead of doing? They kept reacting to what was happening to Nick. Why didn't they act?

 

Greg knew every detail of the case. He went over it in his head, the trap, the money, the light, the gun, the interview with the daughter. Greg mentally shook his head. Walter Gordon had done all this for his daughter, for Kelly, who was in jail because a CSI had found a styrofoam cup that'd put her away. It was stupid. She was in jail because she'd done the wrong thing. It wasn't the CSI's fault that Kelly had been convicted. It wasn't Nick's fault, either, but Nick was the one who was suffering.

 

It had to have something to do with Kelly. It all led back to Kelly. Where had she worked, in a nursery for plants? Nick was buried under the ground. A CSI had buried his daughter's freedom; Walter Gordon must have buried Nick where Kelly would have been if she were still free.

 

"Gil!" he shouted, racing into the evidence room where Gil was looking at the computer screen, trying to find more clues to Nick's whereabouts. Greg pulled him away from the computer, ignoring the fact that they were at work and he should be calling Gil Grissom and he shouldn't be touching. "Gil, I know where he is! The nursery where Kelly Gordon used to work. He has to be there!"

 

Gil cast an uncertain look at the screen again, but then he nodded. "I think you're right."

 

They assembled a search team and raced down to the site, rushing to Catherine's side with shovels when she picked up the transmitter's signal through the ground. There was almost an hour left on Warrick's watch. Greg didn't take a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, though. He just kept digging until Warrick hit something.

 

After that, it was all chaos. Greg focused on Gil's voice to lead him through it, lifting the corner of the, the coffin, shooting foam inside to kill the ants skittering over Nick's body. "Not too much!" Gil shouted. Greg tried to keep his hands from trembling. He didn't know how he hadn't passed out yet. "Don't suffocate him, Greg."

 

Greg took a deep breath, then delivered more foam until Gil told him it was all right, that he should step back. So he did. Warrick and some officers helped Gil pull off the lid, and all Greg could do was watch. Just watch, thanking God for his burst of inspiration about the nursery. Nick was shaking, shaking the ants off himself, reaching for Gil and Warrick to pull him out of the box.

 

Something tingled at Greg's senses, but he couldn't tell what it was at first. It was so sudden, a smell like he'd smelled an instant before the explosion in his lab. Before he could identify it, a blast threw him back, back what felt like hundreds of feet onto hard dirt, knocking the wind out of his body. Back to two years ago. Greg wheezed in, struggling to get his breath back, then everything went dark.

 

***

 

The hand holding his was smaller than Gil's, softer too. Greg blinked his eyes open, taking in the scent of sterility in the room, the beeping of the machines that reminded him of the way Warrick's watch had beeped when he'd set the time for Nick to run out of air. But Nick hadn't, because they'd found him in time. Because of Greg.

 

"Where's Nick?" he asked, trying to open his eyes again. Only his eyes were already open, but he couldn't see. Greg took a gasping breath and sat up in what had to be a hospital bed, clutching at the hand holding his. "What's going on? What happened?" His voice was way too high. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

 

"Shhh," came the voice, trying to soothe him like the simple, rhythmic squeezes of the hand in his. It calmed him down a little, but he was scared, blind and scared. He couldn't see, couldn't recognize the voice. "Greg, I'm sorry."

 

"What, for what? What...?" When he squeezed the hand in his, focused on the voice, he realized he knew it. It was Catherine, her voice unlike he'd ever heard it.

 

"Greg, Nick didn't make it."

 

No. Nono nono nonono. "But... but he had to..."

 

"I'm sorry, Greg, he..."

 

"Why? Why didn't he make it?" Catherine was lying to him. She was just trying to scare him. Or joke with him. Or something. And it wasn't funny.

 

"Hodges figured out what the indents on the bottom of the box were," she said softly. "They were explosives, set to go off when there was a change in pressure."

 

Greg's mouth was open but no sound was coming out. No. Nick couldn't be dead. It couldn't be his fault. He was mad. Mad at Walter Gordon for doing this, at Kelly Gordon for committing a crime, at the CSI for finding the cup, at Nick for fucking falling for it. He shouldn't have fallen for it. He shouldn't have walked away. "No," he whispered. He gripped Catherine's hand, hanging onto the only thing he recognized. Why couldn't Gil be the one holding his hand? Why did he have to hear it from Catherine? "Where's Gil?" he cried.

 

"Greg..." No. Please, please, no. "He didn't make it either. Neither did Warrick. They were too close to the blast."

 

Greg's throat tightened. His fault, all his fault. He should've waited. Should've given Hodges more time to figure out what the indents were, should've figured it out himself. Instead of racing to open Schrödinger's fucking coffin.

 

"I want to die," he whispered. And he did, because his lover and his two best friends were dead, all because of him. It was all a bad dream, the worst bad dream possible, too bad to be real but it was real because Catherine wouldn't lie to him about something like this and if he was dreaming he would've woken up by now. "Please, just..."

 

It hurt. Everything hurt. It felt like the explosion again, except this time the burns covered him from head to foot, his whole body numb. Or maybe he was just numb because he'd killed the three most important people in his life.

 

Catherine was talking, but he wasn't hearing. Nothing she said could change it. Nothing would bring them back.

 

At least he knew he was going to look like the monster he knew he was. He was marked with it for the rest of his life, and everyone would know not to go near him.

 

If he was lucky, he'd get an infection and he wouldn't survive it. But maybe that was too lucky. He didn't deserve an easy death. He deserved to spend the rest of his life suffering for what he'd done.

 

And that was it.

 

Blind, burned, and broken. That was the rest of his life.

 

***


End file.
